Your Dealership Service Department Experience

[ENIAC]

I thought it would be interesting if we posted our individual experiences with dealership service departments. More and more of us, for example, have our annual battery check coming up and all 2011 owners are going to be visiting a dealership sometime this year. From a variety of posts I've read, there appears to be a wide range in overall customer satisfaction with dealership service departments presently with the LEAF.

EDIT: Modified the title to be clear this thread is about the service department at the dealerships.

 

[TomT]

My experiences to date on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being best):

Mission Hills Nissan (AC firmware recall): 4 (it would have been a 5 if the technician had not been smoking around my car).
Mission Hills Nissan (more recently: TCU firmware TSB update request): 1 (they never responded despite both a phone call and email).
Keyes Van Nuys Nissan (TCU firmware TSB update request): 2 (they had no idea what it was or how to do it, but at least were very pleasant).

I thought it would be interesting if we posted our individual experiences with dealership service departments. More and more of us, for example, have our annual battery check coming up and all 2011 owners are going to be visiting a dealership sometime this year. From a variety of posts I'ver read, there appears to be a wide range in overall customer satisfaction with dealership service presently with the LEAF.

 

[coqui]

My dealer rates a "1":
No idea what "Eco" is and how to get into it.
No idea that an 80% charge is better for the battery than a 100% charge.

 

[mwalsh]

Mine (Connell Nissan) gets a "9" for attentiveness and personal attention. They would have gotten a "10" except the service adviser mistakenly wanted to get me into a brake fluid change, when I knew darn well I wasn't due one under the "less severe" maintenance schedule. Which only goes to show how important it is for you to be aware of what service your vehicle requires when you take it in.

 

[tailgate1234]

Boardwalk Nissan in Redwood City was terrible. My LEAF was brought in on a flatbed (it wouldn't move when starting up). It took them 2 days to look at the car because they were busy - presumably people with prior appointments for oil changes take priority over inoperable cars - and they called me to tell me they were able to get the car to move but couldn't reproduce the problem and there weren't any codes. When I expressed my concern about the car failing to move again in the future, a large gentleman came over and told me in a somewhat menacing way that Boardwalk was the largest LEAF dealer in the country, that they didn't find anything wrong, and was their something else they could help me with sir? Thanks guys. Also, I had a problem in that my iPhone stopped working with the electronics. They told me they got an iPod to work so there was nothing wrong with the car's electronics and I needed to update my phone's operating system or get a new cable. All incorrect. A helpful dealer employee not in service, name omitted to protect the innocent, advised me to disconnect the battery for a few minutes and let the car reboot - which solved the problem immediately and permanently. I got a call from Nissan a few days later after completing the survey, spoke to the rep who seemed concerned about the car not "getting into gear", and promised to contact the dealership. The end result - I never heard from Boardwalk again. (BTW, they were very aggressive while the car was in the shop and afterward about contacting me to sell some minor body work. In fairness to them, their quote was almost exactly the same as a local independent known for good pricing.)

My bottom line view is that Boardwalk is a high-volume service department that works on VWs, Chevys and who knows what else in addition to Nissans. They don't seem to want to spend too much time on LEAFs. It's too bad because my sales experience at Boardwalk was very positive as has been the experience of everybody else on the board. Luckily, LEAFs don't require much maintenance and perhaps because of fewer moving parts, I won't have to take the car in to the dealer very much.

 

[PatricioEV]

Towne North Nissan in Austin, TX, and Tommy Silvers in particular, were FANTASTIC with the one small issue I've had. Some dash lights weren't coming on and Tommy tested all my fuses without even checking me in for service to try and fix the problem quickly. I ended up needing to drop it off because it was a somewhat "hidden" fuse, but they fixed it quickly. They took me to work, picked me up after and even had the car washed and fully charged when I got there to pick it up. They even checked all the other circuits to make sure there weren't any other problems and made sure there was plenty of nitrogen in all my tires. GREAT SERVICE!

 

[Boomer23]

I can give Connell Nissan in Costa Mesa a 10 (or is it a 5 on a scale of 5?) Free first tire rotation service. Very professional, quick and no attempts to upsell anything.